Terry mentioned a report last week about Michael Jackson possibly choosing “plastination” as a grim sort of immortality. Now USA Today’s Lifeline Live blog reports that speculation has continued about Jackson’s burial plans.
Both posts reminded me of this brief item at Utne Reader’s Spirituality blog, which mentions a greener version of cremation that promoters call promession.
The Utne item links, in turn, to The Walrus magazine. Both items dwell on the green virtue of promession as opposed to cremation. Neither really explores the spiritual questions involved, especially of how to treat a dead body with respect.
As the YouTube video atop this post explains, promessa involves freezing a corpse; using vibration to break it into small pieces; freeze-drying the pieces; removing any metal bits; and burying the post-human nuggets in a biodegradable container.
The folks at Promessa, which promotes the burial method, have thought about various religions’ teachings on the afterlife, and they conclude that such issues are less clear (and ultimately less important) than what happens to a dead body:
Many of the ideas and ponderings that dwell within the inner self are, however, thoughts about there being some kind of continuation of life, even after we have taken our last breath. And there is no such thing as right or wrong in these matters. It is important that every individual is allowed to have his or her faith, since no one really has access to the answers. On the other hand, we know what happens to a body that is no longer alive. Here we have answers. But despite this we don’t want to accept the given rules, instead we have devised unbiological routines concerning our last resting place.
Oh yes, there is an additional religion element to all this: The Church of Sweden holds a 5 percent stake in Promessa. Say what you will about the Church of Sweden, but it cannot be accused of cutting corners in pursuit of green purity.
For what it’s worth: I’m most drawn to Natural Burial, which finds the via media between embalming and cremation and leaves the steps of recycling to nature.
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Comments (16) |
July 6, 2009, at 8:29 pm
Apparently, caskets and the corpses within them are an enormous threat to the future of our planet. I never knew.
I wonder when the Green Lobby will hook up with NASA and initiate a program in which the Space Shuttle takes dead bodies to outer space, thereby saving the planet from the threat mentioned above.
July 6, 2009, at 9:11 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t freezing a body, then using vibration to break it like an icicle, then freeze-drying the bits and sifting through for any metal a rather labour- and energy-intensive business?
Much more expenditure in energy than just putting the body in a coffin and burying it in a grave? How elaborate can ordinary funerals in Sweden be, anyway, that this is considered more “eco-friendly”?
July 6, 2009, at 9:29 pm
Both the Utne Reader and Walrus pieces wax eloquently about the negative ecological effects of traditional burial and cremation. Given that our Ultimate Concern is CO2 emissions, I’d think it useful to have a breakdown on the energy costs of generating liquid nitrogen to freeze bodies, a vibration table to shatter them, a metal extractor to remove extraneous fillings and artificial joints, and a freeze drier to remove moisture. I intuit that the energy expense isn’t negligible.
The inventor should stick to the technical aspects of her patented process, rather than attempt philosophical speculation on the nature of the soul and environmental ethics. In the text you quote, she circumvents all religious objections by adopting a convenient agnosticism: everyone has his or her own opinion, so no one can say who’s right. Then, when she’s discussing the impact of burial and cremation, moral certainty resurrects, albeit in pseudo-scientific form:
I’m not a biologist, but I think I can distinguish between biology and someone’s ethics disguised as biology. Biology tells me how a human body decomposes or burns; it doesn’t tell me which method of disposing of human remains is “ethically correct”. I’d guess that neither the Utne Reader nor the Walrus are prepared to ask questions that expose green ethics as no more rational or concrete than beliefs about the soul or traditional notions about disposing of human remains. People have different ideas about such things; thus, no one can say who’s right or wrong. At least, that’s what we’ve been told.
July 6, 2009, at 10:11 pm
Hi there,
Congratulations for identifying the drawbacks to Promession. The process is notable because it’s different, and it does get us asking the questions about the end of life - who gets our bodies, why, who makes money off of them, etc. These are good questions.
I think Utne and Walrus writers simply didn’t take the time to do proper research or think the process through thoroughly. It’s pretty obvious that there’s not a net-gain in energy saved if a body is freeze-dried using liquid nitrogen.
There’s a small percentage of instances when this process is probably better than others - however, at this moment they still haven’t worked out the technical kinks so it’s still on the drawing board.
A simple natural burial is still the best. The day we don’t have room for another tree is still a long way away.
cb
July 7, 2009, at 12:26 am
I often wondered why the very green people don’t take of burial at sea as the mortuary cause du jour. Seems more energy efficient than cremation or this new NesCafe method. Additionally, many ancient religions allow burial at sea. Seems to me that putting a bunch of bodies on a barge and dropping them in the the deep would be the way to go in coastal areas. What does it matter if the worms are terrestrial or oceanic?
July 7, 2009, at 12:30 am
One reason to do this for environmental reasons not having anything to do with CO2 emissions: I’ve been told that in many places in Europe, bodies are dug up from cemetaries after a certain number of years to make way for newly dead bodies because they are running out of cemetary space. As this country gets more crowded, we may need to do the same. This promession would save on digging and transporting bones after the 10 or 20 year lease abd you could keep planting the remains in overlapping sites forever.
Snag - in the US at the present time most cemetaries would not allow natural burial because you end up with the ground caving in. That’s why they insist on the coffin and the vault which contains it.
I checked and found out that I can have my plain pine box, but it will still have to be in a vault. So I can’t be mulch.
Reminds me of the scene in Six Feet Under where the undertaker’s son is buried out in the country somewhere under a tree with no marker and I don’t think there was even a casket of any kind.
July 7, 2009, at 1:38 am
Julia:
See the link that Doug provided above to the words “natural burial.” It is a directory of “natural burial preserves” cemeteries dedicated to the practice. I suspect we will see more of them as time goes on.
July 7, 2009, at 10:49 am
I saw a TV show a few years back that focused on natural burials (not even a coffin, and surely no freeze drying.) Search “Natural Burial” on YouTube for a few videos.
Julia’s comment was what first occurred to me: local and state laws in most states require a vault and a “real” coffin, so that’s out of the question. California and a few Western states (and at least some places in Europe, apparently) DO allow the natural method, sometimes not even requiring a coffin.
My friend in Austria showed me his village church’s VERY small graveyard and indeed, they get 20 years and then their bones go under the church. In some places, others are buried on top of them first.
I agree with previous posters that it seems like the energy required and the liquid nitrogen itself would be LESS environmentally safe, but that remains to be reported on, doesn’t it?
Also, I agree that any prognostication about how much more “ethical” this method is, or the spiritual implications of this may be, are not really appropriately handled in the article cited. Not that everyone isn’t entitled to their own opinions about these things.
July 7, 2009, at 10:52 am
This raises an interesting question.
Our Orthodox parish has plots in a nearby Orthodox cemetery. I would assume that most of the burials are, following tradition, in simple pine caskets. I wonder if state law requires the ORTHODOX cemetery to use vaults?
July 7, 2009, at 11:42 am
That thing about vaults interests me, because we don’t have them here in Ireland. Even embalming has only become widespread in the last twenty or so years. Heck, in some places, there is still the tradition (admittedly dying out) of the male family members going to the cemetery to dig the grave with shovels, but that’s beside the point.
I’m pretty sure the ground caves in in cemeteries here, too; that’s why the mound of earth dug out when digging the grave is left on top of the grave after the burial (and why you either go out yourself or get the undertaker to dress the grave after it’s settled).
Do American cemeteries not leave the earth on top of the grave after burial? If the reason for concrete vaults is ‘caving in of the earth’, why don’t we stipulate that too? Is it the case that there are fewer family plots (and so more than one burial in the same grave) and more single-use plots in America? Burial practices seem to be very diverse.
July 7, 2009, at 12:50 pm
Let’s not forget Mollie’s post in December about Zoroastrian sky burial:
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=4314
July 7, 2009, at 1:16 pm
Years ago Bill Ballance was on the radio in Los Angeles. He said that the cheapest burial was to be frozen and then driven into the ground with a pile driver.
July 7, 2009, at 2:55 pm
A “Virtual” burial has zero environmental impact, either:
http://mashable.com/2009/07/06/pocket-cemetery/
July 7, 2009, at 4:07 pm
Gee whiz, sounds like making TVP. What happens when it rains? Is there a shelf life (death?)?
July 7, 2009, at 5:02 pm
I’ve read where some places in Europe are now burying people standing up so more can be squeezed in. I hear there are airlines doing the same.
July 28, 2009, at 11:15 am
We should remember that liquid nitrogen makes up at least 70% of our atmosphere and is produced in vast quantities as a byproduct of the oxygen industry. Currently liquid gas companies are only able to sell a negligable amount of the nitrogen produced (as little as 10%) and the rest is released back into the atmosphere!
With this in mind Promession looks like a stroke of genius in making use of an unwanted industrial byproduct in order to maintain the natural life cycle which it seems is being degraded through traditional burial/cremation methods, which aside from causing pollution are, in many areas, unable to handle population expansion.